Ships Are Launching From My Chest
by ragtime tune
Summary: They've skinned their knees on the same driveways, climbed the same trees, ran through the same sprinkler. They're stuck together like gum in tangled hair. Part of the high school AU universe.


**Ships Are Launching From My Chest**, G. In which Wendla goes to kindergarten, swings make matches, pirates tramp down the street, and a home is built in a tree house. Technically part of the High School AU universe thing that's going on, this will be a three-part fic exploring (a) elementary school years, (b) middle school years, and (c) high school years. This section is part A. The title comes from "Welcome Home, Son", by Radical Face, and, as always, Spring Awakening doesn't belong to me.

* * *

It is the first day of kindergarten, and Wendla Bergman picks dandelions on the way to the bus stop. She is wearing her favorite blue dress and shoes that feel too tight on her feet, but it doesn't matter. She gets to ride the bus today, the big yellow bus with wheels that go round and round, round and round, and she couldn't be any happier.

Her mother tells her to stop picking weeds.

Wendla gives her a sunny smile. "They're flowers, Mommy," she corrects. "They're yellow like the bus."

Part of Anja Bergman wants to wrap her daughter in her arms and take her back home, where they can eat milk and cookies all day and never have to worry about growing up. Wendla is perfect like this, little and grinning, a bouquet of dandelions in her hand. She never wants this to change.

Wendla only sees her happy smiling face as she peers out the bus window and waves her tiny hand at her, waving waving waving until she can't see her anymore. There's only a moment when her eyes are wet with tears, forgotten as soon as Melchior laughs from the seat across from her and Ilse's.

"This is so cool!" he says.

And Wendla knows it will be, if Melchior says it's going to be. She is wearing her favorite blue dress and shoes that feel too tight and has a special purple lunch box with flowers on it, and she is on the big yellow bus, wheels going round and round.

xx

Wendla giggles. "Look, Melchi! We're married!"

Melchior laughs back, pumping his legs back and forth as he swings. They swing in matching arcs high up over the playground. He reaches his hand out and tells Wendla to take it.

"I'll fall off!"

"No you won't. It's okay. Look, I can do it fine."

His voice sails over the jungle gym and the monkey bars.

Wendla bites her lip and takes one hand off the chain, stretching it out and out until Melchior can grasp it.

"I'm doing it! Look at me, Melchi!"

His laughter sails over the playground and the world.

xx

Moritz should probably be mad that half a dozen people just walked into his room, but that's not the way things work around here. They've skinned their knees on the same driveways, climbed the same trees, ran through the same sprinkler. They're stuck together like gum in tangled hair.

They're the best of friends.

"Yo ho ho!" Ilse yells. "And a bottle of rum! What be you doin', scallywag?"

"Huh?"

"I said what're you doin', scallywag? Answer or you walk the plank!"

"Nothing."

"Psh," Ilse scoffs. "Yar. The ship is sailing in five minutes. If you're in favor, say 'aye'!"

Moritz looks at the tip of her plastic sword, an inch from his face, and feels like he doesn't really have a choice.

"Aye!" he says.

"Aye!" Ilse, Melchior, Wendla, Anna, Martha, and Georg chorus.

They traipse down the stairs and out Moritz's back door, past the laundry Mrs. Stiefel has hung up on the line, past the swing set. Thea and Ernst run at them from Ernst's backyard, Otto trailing behind them, an eye patch over his eye. He stumbles and falls into Ernst, who tries his hardest to catch him, but Otto is a big kid and Ernst is thin as a stick, so they topple over into Thea.

"_Jeez_," Ilse groans. "You are the worst pirates _ever_. I'm gonna throw you overboard."

"We're not on a ship, Ilse," Melchior points out.

She crosses her arms. "That doesn't matter!"

"Well, it really sorta—"

"Just c'mon!" she interrupts, and stomps towards the street.

Melchior, Wendla, Anna, Martha, Georg, Moritz, Thea, Ernst, and Otto follow her. She's the kind of girl who walks in her little hop-skip and starts a parade. In eye patches and pirate hats, the ship crew walks down the street for a daring and dangerous adventure.

"Hey!" Ilse calls as they're passing in front of number six, and walks across the lawn.

"Hey, you!"

The blonde boy sitting on the front steps looks at her.

"What are you doing in my yard?"

"Who're you?"

"What are you doing in my yard?"

"So you're the new kid! I haven't seen you before. You know Mr. Down used to live in this house? He had glasses and black hair and a limp."

"What are you doing in my yard?"

Ilse cocks her head at him. "Walkin' to Melchi's. Duh. You could come if you want."

He seems to contemplate for a moment, and then carefully sticks his bookmark in his book and jumps off of the steps to join them.

"My name is Hanschen Rilow," he says.

"I'm Ilse. And this is Melchi, Wendla, Georg, Otto, Thea, Anna, Moritz, Martha, and Ernst."

They all wave hello, and Hanschen Rilow looks at them with a raised eyebrow. "How do you do?" he asks.

xx

The best spot on their street for playing pirates or princesses or robbers is Melchior's tree house, hands down. Moritz might even say it's the best place for playing pirates or princesses or robbers in the whole _world_, but he's never been to the whole world, so maybe there is a place.

Though he doubts it.

Today they're pretending the tree house with the pirate wheel is an actual house with a real fridge and not just a cardboard box that Georg's drum set came in. Melchior is the dad, Wendla is the mom, and Thea and Ernst are the kids. Anna and Georg (recently married), a baby doll named Julia, and Hanschen (their son) are the next-door neighbors that live on the ground in the playhouse. Ilse, Martha, and Otto are cousins who live on a houseboat. Or, you know, the Gabor's deck.

Moritz, well, he's the new puppy that everyone wants to play with.

"Honey, I'm home," Melchior calls out as he climbs up the ladder to the tree house.

"Oh, good. Sweetie," Wendla laughs. "That's good. Come on. Did you see the new puppy? His name is..."

She shrugs. "Uh, Moritz, what's your dog name?"

He barks.

"Lightning!" Thea interjects.

He barks again, wagging himself in agreement. Melchior pats him on the head. "So, Ernst, what did you do today?"

"Uh, played with Hanschen. We were running and I woulda beat him if he didn't bump into me on accident."

"Good for you, Ernst!" Melchior smiles.

"I saw Anna's new baby!" Thea boasts. "But I think Otto drew on her face or somethin' 'cause she has orange on her forehead and I definitely didn't do it."

Fanny Gabor can see them from her kitchen; Ilse sick of sitting on the deck with Martha and Otto and instead running up to the tree house and saying that house is boring and that they should play fairies or something _cool_. "All in favor, say 'aye'!" she orders.

Georg immediately groans in disapproval, sticking his head out from the window of the playhouse and yelling that fairies are _dumb_, and _totally uncool_, and for girls, and Ernst's "aye" dies on his lips. Ten years old is different than five years old, after all.

Fanny watches her own son step in, can hear him suggest that they play pirates instead. It's an old favorite, she knows, and soon they'll be running through her house to find hats and bandanas. Melchior will hug her before he runs out again, and she wonders how long that will last. Will he be too old to hug his mom in a year? A couple months? A few days?

She makes them all stop, bedecked in their pirate gear, and she takes a picture of them to hang on the fridge that isn't just a box from Georg's drum set. Martha smiles her soft smile, Thea beaming beside her, Anna standing next to them with straight shoulders, Georg holding bunny ears up behind Otto's head, Melchior in the middle with his arm around Moritz, Ilse and Wendla sticking out their tongues, and Ernst standing with Hanschen on the right, arms looped together.


End file.
